Osian's Auction Catalogue Select Masterpieces of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | June 2009

95 43 A. Ramachandran (b.1935) Untitled Oil on canvas, c .1975 Signed in Malayalam ‘Ramachandran’ l.l. 68.9 x 64.2 in (174.8 x 162.8 cm) Condition Stable cracks on the paint surface INR 3,600,000 – 4,500,000 USD 75,000 – 93,750 For Works from the same series refer to Rupika Chawla, Ramachandran: The Art of the Muralist , Bangalore: Kala Yatra & Sistas Publication 1994 “Sketching from life, his [Ramachandran’s] rather dark paintings from the late 1960s and 70s reveal his acute observations of misery in the streets of a socially stratified Delhi, and serve as caustic comments on the human condition. For instance, in Grave Diggers (1977) and Encounter (1967), social concern is expressed through grotesque distortions and elongations of the human body. Sweeper women in Jangpura and prostitutes around Lajpat Nagar in Delhi served as models for his painting entitled Cells (1966) that symbolizes captivity and exploitation. Anonymous and insignificant, his headless figures express the anatomy of pain, their stretched and twisted bodies become markers of their tryst with the harsh reality of the metropolis. The artist’s exaggerated illusionist treatment of chiaroscuro accentuates the existential angst and unease of the displaced migrant. Ramachandran’s large canvases and mural format served as the expanse of the city in which he portrayed the corporeal human struggle and its endless attempts at release triggered by a utopian desire.” – Roobina Karoda and Shukla Sawant, rpt. in Art and Visual Culture in India 1857-2007 , Marg, 2009, p198.